Conservative Happenings

Friday, February 28, 2014

Palin Mocked In 2008 For Warning Putin May Invade Ukraine If Obama Elected

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin warned that if Senator Barack Obama were elected president, his "indecision" and "moral equivalence" may encourage Russia's Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.

After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama's reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia's Putin to invade Ukraine Next.

Sarah Palin discussed the issue with Fox New's Todd Starnes: I just finished chatting with Sarah Palin. Here's a comment she asked me to share exclusively with you folks:

"Back in 2008, I accurately predicted the possibility of Putin feeling emboldened to invade Ukraine because I could see what kind of leader Barack Obama would be. The bullies of the world are always emboldened by indecision and moral equivalence. We can expect more of this sort of thing in a world where America is gutting its military and 'leading from behind.'"

Via: Fox News

Fla. doctor could bring Obamacare executive orders to screeching halt in federal court

A South Florida orthodontist is taking on President Obama‘s penchant for unilaterally altering the Affordable Care Act without the approval of Congress.

And he’s got a shot a winning.

Larry Kawa took to Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., Wednesday morning to announce a lawsuit filed on his behalf with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. It’s the only case of its kind against any of the 29 executive orders relating to Obamacare.

If successful, the court could force the Obama administration to adhere to the employer mandate that it has twice delayed, contradicting the plain text of the law.

DR. LARRY KAWA: Filed suit in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to challenge the Obama administration’s employer mandate delays.

It could be the biggest case of 2014.

“I’m not a politico. I’m not a Washington D.C. guy. I’m an orthodontist from Boca Raton,” Kawa told Watchdog.org.

But he’s also on to something. A federal district judge previously dismissed his case against the government while simultaneously lying out a roadmap for how to proceed. Kawa lacked standing.

Standing is the legal principle in which a plaintiff must show an actual injury before a court will hear the dispute. It’s a hurdle that has kept at bay other would-be challengers seeking to avoid an injury.

“If the court grants us standing then they lose,” Kawa said.

Because he employs more than 50 workers, Kawa Orthodontics is subject to complicated regulations and penalties under Obamacare.

In March 2013, Kawa spent $5,000 on legal fees to make sure his business was in compliance with the health law. Kawa said he spent 100 additional hours learning about the law, including meetings with insurance agents and his accountant.

Four months later it was all for naught. The administration changed the law without congressional approval. It was delayed again on Feb 10.

Via: BizPac Review

CNN Slams Republican for 'Racist Roast,' But Ignores Democrat's Racial Gaffe

In a clear double standard, CNN was in an uproar on Thursday and Friday over an Arizona GOP legislator's racist jokes about Latinos but has yet to report a Florida Democrat's gaffe about immigrants.

"As if lawmakers in the state of Arizona didn't already have enough negative national attention, there is this," Anderson Cooper piled on. He played state representative John Kavanagh's "racist roast" of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and added that his jokes "set off a firestorm in the Latino community." Yet a few days ago, Florida Democrat Alex Sink emphasized the importance of immigration reform because of the need for landscapers and hotel workers and CNN has said nothing.

Below is a transcript of Sink's remark:

"Immigration reform is important in our country. It's one of the main agenda items of the beach's chamber of commerce, for obvious reasons. Because we have a lot of employers over in the beaches that rely upon workers, and especially in this high-growth environment, where are you going to get people to work to clean our hotel rooms or do our landscaping? And we don't need to put those employers in a position of hiring undocumented and illegal workers."

Sink lost to Republican Rick Scott in the 2010 gubernatorial election and is now running in a special election in Florida's 13th congressional district. Yet for a politician of her profile, CNN didn't deem her gaffe newsworthy.

Yet CNN reported Kavanagh's comments on Thursday's 2 p.m. ET of Newsroom, Thursday's Anderson Cooper 360, and Friday's 8 a.m. ET hour of New Day.

Below is a transcript of Thursday's Anderson Cooper 360 segment:

CNN
ANDERSON COOPER 360
2/28/14
[8:42 a.m. EST]

ANDERSON COOPER: Welcome back. As if lawmakers in the state of Arizona didn't already have enough negative national attention, there is this. It comes from Arizona Republican state's representative John Kavanagh. He is actually one of the leading defenders of the now-vetoed SB 1062, and took great care to say it was really no big deal.

This weekend, as the controversy over 1062 was heating up Mr. Kavanagh spoke at a roast for Phoenix's controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the guy who was at the center of Arizona's last controversy over SB 1070, the so-called "papers please" immigration law. Here is part of what the state representative said at this roast.

(Video Clip)

JOHN KAVANAGH (R), Arizona state legislature: I'm not the federal monitor. How many Hispanics did you pull over on the way over here, Arpaio, huh?

Via: Newsbusters.com

Obamacare Forces Michigan Hospital To Cut Jobs

David Zechman, President and CEO of McLaren Northern Michigan hospital, says that Obamacare is to blame for the hospital’s newly announced layoffs and cuts.

Obamacare has increased patients’ deductibles, making it difficult for them to continue visiting their doctors.

McLaren Northern Michigan hospital’s budget was severely affected by lower federal reimbursement rates for Medicaid and Medicare services.

“We still have the same costs of taking care of patients, but it’s hard to keep doing the same things you’re doing if you paid less for the same amount of costs and services you provide- it’s just basic economics,” Zechman told WPBN.

He says it is hard to predict if there will be any more cuts or reductions in the future, but he would not be surprised if nearby hospitals were also forced to lay off their employees.

Via: WFB

Four of five FCC study authors gave to Obama

A significant problem with the now-suspended Federal Communications Commission plan to have government contractors question journalists about editorial decisions and practices was that it was a partisan exercise. The plan originated among Democrats on the FCC; the commission's two Republican members didn't even learn about it until it was well under way.

There was also a one-sidedness in the research behind the project. The FCC enlisted scholars from two big journalism schools, the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Communication and Democracy, to determine the "critical information needs" about which journalists would be questioned. The study, delivered in July 2012, listed five authors: Ernest J. Wilson III, Carola Weil, and Katya Ognyanova from USC, Lewis Friedland from Wisconsin, and Philip Napoli from Fordham University. (Weil is now with American University.) Four of the five, it turns out, contributed to President Obama's campaigns.

According to Federal Election Commission records, Wilson gave $3,300 to the Obama presidential campaign in 2007 and 2008. Napoli contributed $500 to Obama in 2008. Weil gave $250 in 2012. And Friedland gave $200 in 2008. There are no contributions listed from Ognyanova, who as a post-doctoral fellow led a team of graduate student researchers on the project.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with professors contributing to President Obama, and there's nothing wrong with Democrats exercising control over the FCC when there's a Democrat in the White House. But controversial projects are usually less controversial when they have some bipartisan support; it's often a good idea to have a little diversity of opinion in the mix when decisions are made. But in this case, the newsroom survey appears to have been a one-sided exercise every step of the way.

Via: Washington Examiner

Obama Froze Biden Out After Gay-Marriage Gaffe

AND THE DOWNSIDE TO THIS IS ??????

Vice President Joe Biden's role in the administration was virtually frozen after he angered President Barack Obama in 2012 by announcing his support of gay marriage while the president was still on record opposing it.

In a profile of the 71-year-old in Politico Magazine, the presumed 2016 presidential hopeful talked about how he had been given "every s*** job in the world" from the start of the Obama presidency, but detailed how relations with the president came to a virtual standstill after the gaffe-prone politician pre-empted Obama's announcement that he had "evolved" on the issue.

Urgent: Do You Approve Or Disapprove of President Obama's Job Performance? Vote Now in Urgent Poll

"When the president asked me what portfolio did I want, I said, 'Base it on what you want of me to help you govern,'" Biden said he told Obama.

"'But I want to be the last guy in the room on every major decision … You're the president, I'm not, but if it's my experience you're lookin' for, I want to be the last guy to make the case."

But everything changed in 2012, after Biden announced his approval of gay marriage before the president took a public stand, the Politico report says.

Biden's announcement forced Obama to make his own public statement about gay marriage earlier than he would have liked.

Despite attempts to apologize to Obama that he did not intend to upstage the president on the issue, the president's inner circle suspected otherwise and became increasingly hostile toward him.

Biden started to be excluded from strategic planning meetings, while his schedule of public events was curtailed and in some cases canceled. Aides went so far as to interfere with Biden's staffing decisions, blocking two of his selections for chief of staff, according to the magazine.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Biden's top possible rival for the presidential race, appeared to step into the breach. Clinton, for example, appeared alongside Obama during the president's first television interview of his second term. The Biden team was also disgruntled that the White House didn't strongly refute the rumors that Clinton would be selected to replace Biden.

Via: Newsmax
Continue Reading....

Sack This! An Impossible Task for NFL Refs to Also Serve as Word Police

The N-Word.

The F-word (not the four-letter version, but the six-letter derogatory gay term).

Two words that have no place in public discourse.

And potentially two words with serious consequences if used during games in the National Football League. As you may have heard, the NFL is considering instituting a rule where players would be penalized 15 yards for uttering the aforementioned words on the field.

It’s noble what the NFL is attempting to do here.

It’s also absolutely unenforceable.

Picture this scenario: It’s a Sunday night game between the 49ers and Seahawks in Seattle. As you may have heard, CenturyLink Field is undoubtedly the loudest stadium in the league (which is impressive considering it is an outdoor stadium). So noisy, so difficult to play in for opponents, they retired #12 in honor of the fans (the 12th man). That said, it’s no coincidence the reigning champs are 15-1 at home over the past two seasons.

So it’s a tie game in the 4th quarter. Defensive Player X from San Francisco is running across the field to attempt to tackle running back Player Y of Seattle. But before he gets there, he is chopped-blocked at the knees by Player Z, a pulling lineman for the Seahawks. San Fran Player X feels the block was a cheap shot with intent to hurt him, and calls him the N-word for attempting to do so.

But this all unfolds away from the ball, and the referees are focused on what’s happening around Player Y, the Seattle RB. A ref thinks he hears someone yell the N-word, but isn’t sure due to a deafening crowd that once reached a decibel level of 136 (148 can make an ear rupture). But with more than a few players miked up for NFL Films and NBC, the official needs to do something or be reprimanded by his bosses for missing something that may be on tape.

So…he throws a flag on Player A from San Francisco and assesses a 15-yard penalty for illegal use of language. One problem: Player A wasn’t even involved (Player Z was the guilty party)…he just happened to be close by at the time. But again, with 22 players moving at once and 72,000 fans louder than a jet plane, enforcement is not remotely close to being an exact science.

Player A—a veteran who has built a good reputation in the league and is respected by his teammates and opponents alike—is all the rage the next morning on ESPN and even cable news. In our race-obsessed media, the questions are as predictable as the Jets offense: Is Player A a racist? Should he be fined or suspended for saying such a thing? According to Al Sharpton, that should absolutely be the case.

Via: Mediaite.com

Federal Court Upholds School Ban on American Flag T-Shirts

Yesterday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a California high school’s prohibition on American flag t-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. The case is Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School District, and while it might get the law right, it certainly highlights a worrying trend in American schools: the inability or unwillingness to protect students whose speech is unpopular.

On Cinco de Mayo, May 5, 2010, three students wore American flag t-shirts to Live Oak High School. Live Oak, according to the Ninth Circuit, had a history of gang and racial violence. The students who wore the American flag t-shirts were threatened with physical violence. Rather than discipline the students who made the threats, the school decided to tell the American flag t-shirt-wearing students that they could either turn their shirts inside-out, or go home. Two of the students went home, and the students collectively sued the school district in federal district court, claiming that the school violated their First Amendment rights.

Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of the students’ claim, on the grounds that school officials “anticipated violence or substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities, and their response was tailored to the circumstances.”

In the landmark 1969 case of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the First Amendment right of students to peacefully protest the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands to school. In a famous passage, the Court opined that neither students nor teachers “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

Via: The Foundry

4TH QUARTER GDP SLASHED 25%

The Commerce Department announced Friday that its revised estimate of GDP growth in the 4th Quarter was revised down to 2.4% annual growth. Initial estimates had put GDP growth at 3.2%. Economists had expected a downward revision to 2.5%, making Friday's report a disappointment. It is a dramatic drop from the 3rd Quarter estimate of 4.1% growth.

For the full year, the economy grew by a weak 1.9% in 2013. This is down sharply from the 2.8% growth registered in 2012. The downward revisions in the 4th Quarter numbers reflected smaller than estimated increases in personal consumption and private inventory build-ups.

The markets and many economists continue to expect an acceleration in economic growth in 2014. Recent data, however, counters this sentiment. The economy did seem to pick up steam in the 3rd Quarter last year, but the year ended with a clear deceleration in the economy.

One surprise in Friday's report was an increase in inflation higher than initial estimated. Prices increased 1.5% in the 4th Quarter, 25% higher than originally reported. Excluding food and energy, prices rose 1.8% in the quarter, compared to a 1.5% increase in the 3rd Quarter.

Via: Bretibart

Friday, February 28, 2014

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